Aya Nakamura spent the years following her 2023 album DNK embroiled in nationwide drama that had little to do along with her music. The mere suggestion that the French Malian singer would possibly carry out on the 2024 Paris Olympics ignited an unsightly backlash, fueling a racist opposition marketing campaign and a pearl-clutching debate over who should signify France on its greatest worldwide stage. Nakamura sang anyway, reminding the world why she stays one of the crucial fashionable Francophone singers working immediately.
Destinée, her fifth album, meets the furor by leaning even more durable right into a sound solely she will ship. The manufacturing returns to her acquainted melange of Afrobeats, zouk, pop, and R&B; options from Joé Dwèt Filé, JayO, and others add ripples of kompa, reggae, and Latin neo-soul. At 30, Nakamura sounds steelier, virtually amused by her critics. In her writing, she doubles down on her signature braid of Parisian argot (slang) and Bambara, a wink to her followers and a cheeky taunt to the establishments that would like a extra demure entertainer.
If Nakamura’s third album, AYA, was “the sound of a younger lady and mom who has discovered the love she deserves,” Destinée is that of a lady scorned. These love songs are strain cookers, simmering with threats and accusations. Some play coy, like “Alien,” the place she boasts about being insatiable, or the ethereal Kali Uchis collab “Child boy,” the place flirtation doubles as an influence play. However on “Dis-moi,” Nakamura wonders if she’s sleeping beside the satan, and Jamaican star Shenseea’s warning lands like a line from a thriller: “I’ll harm you should you harm me.”
Most compelling is how Destinée reframes Nakamura’s public narrative with out stooping. She doesn’t sermonize about her proper to belong; she treats these arguments as beneath her. Lovers, haters, and the institution blur right into a composite antagonist, a logo of everybody who has tried to shrink her. “Blues,” a stripped-down ballad that recollects the intimacy of “Fly,” is Nakamura at her most susceptible, voice cracking in opposition to smooth keys and a heartbeat. However operating beneath the album’s flexes and dismissals is a deeper inquiry into energy: the way it’s gained, misplaced, reclaimed, generally shared. She doesn’t immediately tackle the spectacle surrounding her Olympic look or her authorized points along with her ex, however when she murmurs about numbing feelings and burying dangerous reminiscences on opener “Anesthésie,” it’s a straightforward connection to make.
For all its confidence, Destinée can rely too closely on acquainted formulation. The album stretches to 18 tracks, and plenty of settle into an identical midtempo sway, with percussion so uniform it begins to really feel automated. The hooks are sticky however predictable—you’ll crave a wild solo or switch-up to jolt the hypnotic groove. Nonetheless, Nakamura stands 10 toes down in her dualities: tender and ruthless, glamorous and drained, wounded and unbothered. Destinée distills the playfulness, poise, and melodic grace which have made her a generational pop star, and with this album, she invitations us to experience the truth that she’s nonetheless right here.
